Wither
by xThe Painted Lady
Summary: Through the nights and days, Lucius discovered that moonlight can be warm, sunlight can be cold, and it wasn't death that was often feared when one's life and sanity began to wither. /Lucius Malfoy-centric


_**A/N:** Written for Round 4 of Fire The Canon's Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, as Captain for the Wimbourne Wasps. This isn't my best, and I don't plan to ever write Lucius again, but regardless, I would love feedback on how I wrote his character because I never write the Malfoys, or any of the "darker" characters in the HP Fandom, for that matter. But all reviews are appreciated! And now, moving on..._

_Thank you to Teddy (teddylupin-snape) for betaing this for me!_

**_Word count: _**_1212_

* * *

What the sky didn't tell you, Lucius found out, left questions hanging in the air that waited to be answered until they finally withered away from abandonment. Not once could he recall ever watching something die, only be killed.

oOo

The first night was spent trying to tell the difference between the moon and stars.

Every time Lucius thought he could open his eyes and see, there was light crawling across the floor, like a hand clawing the ground.

It was the definite presence of another being that kept Lucius from breaking down completely. To sit in a place where moans of the insane drove up the walls and ran down the corridors in darkness that made the Dementors look like they were clothed in grey instead of stark black, made something that was so far away feel closer than considered possible.

That night he discovered moonlight can be warm, and stars never shined as bright as some liked to think.

oOo

The first day, Lucius found out what meant it be clawed by the sun, to feel comfort recede from something that was meant to bring warmth to even to the most desolate parts of the world.

The sun didn't always mean life.

Sometimes it meant death.

That day he discovered that sunlight can be cold, and sundrops could dance along the walls, fleeting dreams of things that never were could be brought to the forefront of vision just to be longed after.

The walls of Azkaban could have never known what it meant to be warm. Even as Lucius drove himself from corner to corner and to the centre of the room, the icy air wrapped itself around his body like vines, crawled up his legs and arms like chilled worms, looking for someplace to stay, somewhere warm, somewhere to live...

Weakness scuttled beneath his skin, cracked his bones and turned them to dust. Lucius screamed, and when it was over his own voice refused to leave the back of his mind.

The Dementors glided right past his cell, if staying to watch him for a second longer than normal. They left with a taunting air poisoning every breath Lucius could still take.

And the day dragged on, the sunlight began to die, and it was dying like it could no longer grasp another breath and was falling in love with the thought of death.

Lucius spent the night convincing himself it was the wind outside his cell that he was listening to, not the sound of nails against steel walls, not the sound of his own voice still ringing through the corridors, and that what sounded like skin splitting and blood pooling in the mouth of someone who couldn't take another ounce of a Dementor's presence was nothing at all.

oOo

The fourth night, Lucius began to understand what it meant to hallucinate.

His cell often looked as though it were nothing at all, pitch black stretching into infinity, moans from behind the walls lasting for an eternity.

He never bothered to bring his eyes back to focus, for that would mean bringing himself back to reality. Reality cackled in his face every time he was jerked out of his subconscious, out of the world that spun the darkness and moonlight together to create the image of only what he could remember to be an evening sky.

And when the cold came back to claw beneath his skin, Lucius often laid staring at the bare wall across from him, mouth moving and teeth chattering, trying to form words that traveled to the open air in an incomprehensible whisper, like that of a rat's desperate squeals to be heard, to be saved.

It's the shattering of the Prophecy that brings him back, the voice of the Dark Lord murmuring to him in such bitter and pitying disgust, and for a moment, his Lord's eyes were staring at him from the ceiling of his cell. Oh, how pathetic his servant was.

"Please," Lucius whispered to the ceiling, throat constricted, body feeling as though it were about to fall apart at any second.

His Lord was shaking his head, raising his wand.

"PLEASE!"

oOo

And what Lucius wanted to know was that if hallucinations really were harmless.

What he needed to know was that if there was such a thing as escape.

Perhaps what he needed an answer to was that if fantasy could become real.

oOo

The seventh night, Lucius found out that sometimes an eternity took the form of a mere second.

Whenever he caught a glimpse of the sun, he turned away and let the sundrop flowers that formed between reality and his vision spot the walls. He paid rapt attention to them, as though there were actual flowers blooming within his view, as though the Dementors that stood just outside his cell door weren't really there, weren't splitting his soul apart with cold knives and piercing every part of his sanity until it bled to death.

His eyes widened when the spots on the walls finally started to fade, when the sun began its descent below the horizon just to leave him alone again.

And so it was him and the Dark Lord once more. Lucius laid in the corner, waiting for his eyes to fall out. He couldn't remember the last time he closed them.

"Are you proud of yourself, Lucius?" his Lord uttered from behind him in the corner. Lucius' body told him to jump, to run, but the Dark Lord's voice rang from every area he could see. He jerked away from the corner with a breathy gasp and scuttled away into the centre of the room.

"Is this what you worked for?"

He swallowed, and it felt as though he would choke. His mouth struggled to form words, sentences refused to travel from his mind to the open air. The question rang from every corner of the room, and simply grew louder with every passing second. Narcissa would be shocked. His son wouldn't know what to think. His Lord pitied him. It was a shame to expose himself to such _weakness_.

The voice of the Dark Lord seemed to multiply and quicken, as though it were a colony of a million insects.

It was only when his Lord's voice rang through the corridors in rapid, high-pitched waves did Lucius scream, and never stop.

oOo

His own voice still rang through the corridors in the silence.

Lucius had adopted the act of scratching the walls so his own screams wouldn't continue to torment him. But the other prisoners seemingly found comfort in insanity. They still screamed so loud they're skin could tear at the neck and mouth, their moans of misery roped around Lucius and refused to let go. He never looked over his shoulder to see if it was actually a Dementor behind him.

Another visit from the Dark Lord that night, and one more part of his sanity slipped away. He raised his wand, and Lucius could not tell what his Lord desired to do with him. He had already lost his mind, heard every last part of his own sanity wither away, his family was nowhere near, and it's only then that he understood that it wasn't death that people feared.

"My Lord..." His words quivered.

"Silence, Lucius."

oOo

It was dying.


End file.
